Since spearheading the return of new
variety in the late 1980's, Mat Ricardo has performed at comedy and
theatre festivals around the world and on the finest international
cabaret, variety and burlesque stages. He has appeared on numerous
television shows, most notably, as the first variety performer to be
a featured guest on ITV1's “Jonathan Ross Show”

He is the inaugural winner of the
London Cabaret Award for best speciality act. His first one man show
“Three Balls and a Good Suit” made him the the first
variety performer to ever win the Herald Angel award for excellence
in theatre, his second “Vaudeville Schmuck” played to sell
out London Audiences and critical acclaim at the Edinburgh Fringe,
and his third, and current, show “Showman” played to a
completely sold-out London West End run, won the Arts Award Voice
Pick of the Fringe award, and was recently showcased at the Purcell
Room at London's Southbank Centre as part of the London International
Mime Festival.

His ground-breaking “London
Varieties” project mixed some of the legends of old-school
British variety and light entertainment with some of the brightest
stars of the current cabaret scene, to create unique shows designed
to pay tribute to the art of variety. After selling out a six month
run at the Bethnal Green Workingmens Club, the show moved to another
six months of packed houses at the Leicester Square Theatre.

His work is always influenced by his
twin passions: The history and legacies of variety and light
entertainment, and making an audience gasp.

Mat currently continues to tour
“Showman” both in the UK and internationally, while
developing new projects for radio, television, and of course, the
variety stage.

Press

Press

“Five
stars for a juggler? I assure you, no mistake. He throws cigar boxes
around, whips tablecloths away, and balances this and that on his
nose. It’s impressive, it’s often hilarious…I laughed myself
silly” - Fringe Guru ★★★★★

"Relentless
hilarious, jaw-dropping fun..Ricardo’s smooth wit drives the show
at full speed. The actual tricks are as stunning for their mastery as
for their ingenious conception. You’ll struggle to find a show more
tightly packed with cunning humour and spellbinding amusement."
- ER Magazine

"This
show surpassed my expectations and then some.

Mat
Ricardo is a tremendously talented performer and an extremely
eloquent, likeable host. Ricardo keeps an open dialogue with his
audience, bouncing off any response with ease. At one point during
the show he was apparently heckled by a small child, which he
sportingly played along with. By creating this rapport with his
audience we are lead to believe that everything the showman is doing
or saying is completely true. This is where he juggles in the comedy
and spices up the routine with some devilishly cheeky moments which
toy with expectations by playing a few tricks on the audience.
Ricardo more than delivers with a thoroughly entertaining show that
kept us on the edge of our seats." - Broadway Baby ★★★★

"He
is charming and impeccably dressed, he has incredible skills and an
admirable respect for the craft from which he now makes his living.

Mat
Ricardo is a Gentleman Juggler. And very witty with it...The man
juggles electric carving knives without (so far) losing a finger. But
in between the “ooo” of this funny, impressive, always
entertaining show, Ricardo weaves some beautiful “aaaah”. The
elegance of his hat and cane routine makes it less juggling and more
prop choreography to well-chosen music.

The
whole show is put together as smartly as each individual juggling
routine and the linking chat is informed, genuine, engaging and funny
stuff. There is a magnetism that marks a really, really good street
performer – it is how they keep their audiences. Ricardo has
brought that magnetism indoors and it is still attractive to watch.
Of course, he tops off the show by performing his signature trick –
now familiar to everyone with a telly, from the Unum Insurance
adverts – with the fully laid table and the cloth.

If you
like your comedy with skills and more than a little genuine risk of
amputation, try Mat Ricardo" - Kate Copstick, The Scotsman
★★★★

"Ricardo
is, first and most obviously, an incredibly talented juggler. He has
been honing his talents for over 20 years, and it shows. He is also a
smart, funny and incredibly likable performer whose involving,
self-deprecating banter carries the audience ably from trick to
trick. Still, Ricardo's main selling point is the astonishing
dexterity and imagination he applies to traditional juggler's tricks.
Even the most jaded audiences will be impressed when bowling balls
enter the equation, and a monologue wherein Ricardo explains why
juggling chainsaws is actually a con sets up his decision to employ
something truly dangerous...

In
making an unfashionable skill fresh once again, comparisons have been
made between Ricardo and Derren Brown, but Ricardo brings more charm
to a single hour than Brown has to his whole career, and so deserves
to be seen on his own ample merits." - Fest Magazine ★★★★

"Ricardo
is a real showman: in that he’s one hell of a juggler and more
besides. So skilled is he that it’ll explode your expectations"
- Three Weeks ★★★★

"It
takes more than dexterity to bring this timeless art to the
forefront. It takes dazzling showmanship, spot-on comic timing and
bucket-loads of style. It takes Mat Ricardo!" - ER Magazine

"Mat
Ricardo is the best of both worlds - a genius juggler and a gifted
comedian" - TimeOut.com

“A
minor legend... We left feeling rather richer to have spent an hour
basking in his warm and commanding presence” - Total Theatre

"The
outstanding juggler of the cabaret and variety scene. Immensely
skilled and very funny." - Time Out

"Dammit
- this man is more likeable than an unexpected lottery win!" -
The Londonist

"Probably
the best juggler you will ever see" - What’s On Stage

"There's
an undeniable grace and beauty to the routines he performs. Slick,
sublime and eloquent – like being visited by the ghost of
entertainment past" - The Skinny

"The
undeniable highlight of the show...spectacular juggling...so funny
that the audience laughed until they could laugh no more!" -
Neuepresse

"The
highlight of the evening...it became hard to breathe due to the
constant laughter...simply magnificent!" - Parkscout Magazine

Mat has created and performed three one man shows, the Herald Angel Award-winning "Three Balls and a New Suit", the London sell-out "Vaudeville Schmuck"and the brand new, critically acclaimed "Showman", which recently completed a sold out London West End run as part of the London International Mime Festival, won the Arts Award Pick Of The Fringe 2014, and continues to tour internationally.

His groundbreaking "London Varieties" project brought some of the biggest names in cabaret and comedy together, and brought variety back to a West End theatre, for two six-month seasons. As part of the shows, Mat interviewed performers including Eddie Izzard, Al Murray, Paul Daniels and Dave Gorman live on stage. He also tap danced, risked his life, and got a pie in the face. Fun was had!

Many of the shows are available to watch, on line, for free, in the London Varieties section of this website. Enjoy!

Cabaret

Cabaret

A key figure in the British cabaret world, and winner of the inaugural London Cabaret Award for Best Speciality Act, Mat regularly headlines the finest venues and shows in London, around the UK, and further afield. He has worked extensively in European "variete", having performed in many of the finest theatres throughout Germany, France, Belgium, Holland and beyond. As a comedy and theatre festival performer, he has headlined stages worldwide, from Asia to Europe, Scandinavia to Australia and New Zealand, and everywhere in between.

His breadth of material - encompassing elements of Stand-up comedy, slapstick, dance, and of course high level circus, lets him suit any audience, and fit seamlessly into any show, before stealing it.

"The outstanding juggler of the cabaret and variety scene. Immensely skilled and very funny." - Time Out

Street

Street

One of the original Covent Garden street entertainers in the late 1980's, and the elected head of the Covent Garden Street Performers Association for a number of years, Mat cut his teeth on the cobblestones, and has since been invited to perform his unique, hilarious and jaw-dropping act at some of the world's best street theatre festivals, including: Christchurch World Buskers festival, Toronto Buskerfest, Freemantle Street Arts Fesival, Noge Daidogei Festival in Yokohama, Japan, Limburg Street Festival, British Festival of South Korea, Landshut stadt Spektakel, Belfast Festival of Fools, and many, many more.

Her: Hi, yeah, just updating our database and we see that you've been involved in a road traffic accident recently, is that right?

Me: Well, I killed those kids.

<silence for a few beats>

Her: Are you fucking with me?

Me: Well, you started it.

Her: No I didn't?

Me: Yes you did. You scam-called me.

Her: It might not be a scam.

Me: Did you just say "It might not be"?

Her: It might not be.

Me: But it is, isn't it?

Her: How do you know? Have you been involved in a road traffic accident?

Me: Well, I don't drive, and have never been in an accident, so no.

Her: Oh

Me: Yes. Quite.

Her: Ah. But. Ah. You see. What sometimes happens is that someone with the same name as you WAS involved in a road traffic accident, and gave your number instead of theirs. That sometimes happens.

Me: Wait. You're telling me that someone with my name, just happens to be carrying around the phone number of someone with the same name as him, so he can give it to the police if he's ever in an accident?

Her: Um, yes? You never know.

Me: You don't think that it's, perhaps, more likely that your evil boss just bought a bunch of phone numbers from some awful company that sells peoples private info for a quick buck, and you're just trying your luck?

Her: Could be.

Me: Are you on commision, or on a wage?

Her: Oh, I'm on a wage.

Me: So you don't care how much time I waste of your work day?

Her: God no.

Me: Ok. Hi!

Her: Hi!

Me: You must get some shit from people you call, doing this job, right?

I was standing in the lobby of a theatre this week, about to go and see a one man show by another old vaudevillian, Jim Dale, when twitter told me the very sad news that Dusty Rhodes had died. For those of you not familiar with the world of pro-wrestling that I sometimes talk about here, this will mean little, but the rest of you will know what a huge loss this is.

One of the greatest stars of the 70's and 80's, and an important figure afterwards, he didn't have the jacked-up look of a modern wrestler, but instead, portrayed the big, rambunctious, blue collar badass everyman. The kind of dude who'd be the life of the party, but also be first in line to hand out an ass-whuppin' if things went sideways.

And boy could he talk. That's what I first loved about him. Working-man poetry delivered in a lisping Texan drawl that was made for people to do impressions of. If you've ever seen one of the final shows in any of my runs, then you would have heard his words, as I always end the last show of a run by thanking the audience with my favourite of his lines:

"I have wined and dined with kings and queens, and slept in an alley eatin' pork and beans"

Earlier this year, my friends William Regal and Robbie Brookside took great delight in telling me that Dusty had been watching some of my stuff on youtube, and loved it. Brookside said that they'd shown him the reverse tablecloth trick, and he'd looked at him sideways and said (and please start your Dusty impressions now) "Where's the gimmick man? Where's the gimmick?"

There's a very special feeling to hearing that someone whose work you love, enjoys yours back, and just as it happened with Regal and Brookside, when it happened again with Dusty I was a bit bowled over. Along with the aforementioned Brits, he was instrumental in the success of the brilliant NXT show, and I started talking about the possibility of going over to Florida where it's filmed to hang out, and see a show. And part of the fun of that idea, undeniably, was the chance to meet Dusty.

It's a testament to how loved and respected he was in the wrestling world that on the day of his death, dozens of wrestlers - big, testosterone packed behemoths, tweeted about the last time they stopped by his office for a hug. How wonderful.

It makes me very sad that I'll never get to meet him, but I'll keep on using his beautiful words, I'll keep on doing my awful Dusty impression, and I'll be grateful that my friends that were his friends made that connection.

You find me, dear reader, mid-tour. And it's a very happy place to be. Other, more jaded and cynical comedy schmucks might moan about the lonely hardships of touring, and sure, criss-crossing the country dragging two suitcases full of tricks behind you on the ever-unreliable public transport network, while not seeing your loved one as often as you might like, can be a downer, once I get to the show, it balances right out and then some.

I am, as I say towards the end of "Showman" not a famous person. I'm not on any comedy panel shows. My artform is still, despite my best efforts, pretty damn niche. But that's kinda good. It means that while I have to bust my ass to get the word out about my shows, and work hard to seduce people into buying a ticket, once I have them, I can deliver. My mission at the moment is to change minds. People look at my poster, maybe read something about me, perhaps look me up online, and they take a chance on me, and that's all I need. I'll work as hard and as funny as I can, and send them out at the end needing to tell their friends about me.

My most recent stop was at the newly created Birmingham Cabaret Festival (and Birmingham peeps - there's still time to catch some awesome stuff in the fest, so GO), and I had a hell of a lot of fun there. I was also lucky enough to get a rather nice review, which I will, if you'll permit me, quote a little of here..

Who doesn't like being called a rock star? Nobody, that's who. Thanks Birmingham :)

But the next date in my tour is the big one, the grandaddy. On the 3rd of June I'll be performing "Showman" for one night only at the London Wonderground. A beautiful spiegeltent slap bang on the South Bank, right next to the Thames. I cannot wait.

This is and important one for me personally, and I'll tell you why...

There's me, grinning like a loon at my own billboard, as Al Murray gurns down at me menacingly. I wanted that picture taken for one specific reason. The Wonderground, my venue for the show, and the location of the billboard poster, is literally thirty seconds walk from where, not that many years ago, I used to do street shows. Every weekend, I'd lug my gear in from South London in the early morning, get in the queue of performers and sit on my suitcase for hours until it was my turn. Then I'd battle apathy, violent breakdancers, and the great British weather, to try to earn enough to pay the rent. It was simultaneously a beautiful way to make a living, and often a heartbreaking one. No feeling as good as going home with a backpack heavy with money from hats, and no feeling worse than knowing you cant pay the rent that month because, after waiting all day for your spot, it rained.

So it's about as literal a signifier as I could wish for. By returning to my old stomping ground, it literally shows me how far I've come. My wonderground show will be special, and it's my only London tour date for the rest of 2015, so please come, and bring your friends, and spread the word.

It was that time of year again - WWE was in town, and lately that has meant a couple of things. Number one: Overly excited nights at the O2 arena with Mrs. Ricardo watching people beat the tar out of each other in variously entertaining and impressive ways. Number two: Getting my annual hang out with British wrestling legend and pal William Regal.

This year he was doing one of his spoken word shows in London and had asked me to open for him, which I am always very happy and honoured to do. One of the lovely things about being "a turn", as regal would call it, is the ability to work anywhere. God knows I've done that - from the Palladium, to the lobby of a Tescos, I've been booked to play everywhere you could imagine, and to every audience. Very few audiences, however, are as great as a wrestling crowd.

Conventional wisdom states that in a basic wrestling match there are, in fact, four, equally important, participants - two wrestlers, the referee, and the crowd. They all talk to each other, and as a group, decide how the match goes. Wrestling audiences, when they're on form, can exhibit an amazing kind of group wit (As an example: in one of the shows at the O2 this year, when one of the grapplers was injured and was taken out on a stretcher, the entire audience started chanting "NHS! NHS!", which was, frankly, a hoot).

What this means is, that a wrestling audience realises that they can play with the performer. This isn't heckling - their goal isn't to stop the show, or steal the attention for themselves, but rather to add to it. So, during my spot, when I chastised an audience member for being too vague, the whole crowd started chanting "BE SPECIFIC! BE SPECIFIC!" at him, before dissolving into laughter. And then, when I put up one of my signature tricks, this happened. Which was great.

Anyway - thanks to everyone who came to see the great Mr. Regal - I hope you liked me too! If you did, please do come and see my one man show "Showman", I'm in Brighton, Birmingham, Gateshead, London and Yorkshire in the next few weeks - full details at the bottom of this post. Jaws dropped, GuaranDAMNteed. ;)

In the meantime, a couple of words about the WWE shows.. Notably enjoyable, these days, is watching current WWE womens division goth badass Paige, who I first met when she was a tiny child running around backstage while I performed in an odd little comedy show with her mother, the equally feared and cool Saraya. Paige has both her mothers good looks and ferocity, and it's great watching her do so amazingly well on the big stage. It was also a pleasure to watch NXT star Neville do his stuff in his home country. I'm a huge NXT fan, and remember watching Neville, when he had a different name, in a couple of British shows years ago. I think NXT has reinvigorated a lot of slightly jaded fans love of wrestling - that's certainly a little true for me, and it's amazing to see the talent that it's both attracting and developing.

Here's a few things my camera saw over the weekend...

And just before you go...

Here are the next few dates - click each one to be taken to the relevant info and booking page...

After the ridiculous cocktail of anxiety and happiness that framed my run of "Showman" at The Purcell Room (And thank you so much for coming, if you did), it's was an easy pleasure to slide back into a weekend of doing some spots at a few London cabaret shows. Short sets are still my bread and butter, but you never know what you're going to get - they can be lovely and welcoming as a warm bath, or lary and unpredictable like a Jackie Chan fight scene. Luckily for me, I was at the Cafe Royal for Salon Des Artistes, and Kettners for Ruby Deshabille'sHigh Societease - both completely gorgeous, classy and uncomplicatedly pleasurable shows.

They both share similar vibes, too. Sometimes cabaret shows try, I think possibly a little too hard, to be edgy or dangerous or sexy, and often end up coming off like a French teenager on a day trip to London pretending to smoke a fake cigarette to look cool (An image that every other ex Covent Garden street performer will instantly recognise). Salon and Societease don't bother with that, instead just presenting assured, quality, grown-up bills of intimate high class cabaret. And by doing that, they create the gently evocative atmosphere of illicit fun that gives this artform its character. A pleasure for those both sides of the curtain.

I threw my camera into my prop case just before I left the house, so here's a few of the things it saw..

I now have a signature cocktail! My work here is done.

Abi Collins slays her fellow performers

...and that's how you end a show.

Just before I sign off, it behooves me to mention that the first set of tour dates for "Showman" have now been announced. If you're not a Londoner, then maybe there's somewhere near you here, and if not, keep your eye on my twitter, as there are more dates added all the time. Oh, and if you're a Londoner who missed out on the Southbank Centre shows, never fear, plans are brewing for something fun in London this Summer.

Things die and other things are born and stuff evolves and that's the way of things. And, to be honest, usually I'm one of those people who kind shrugs and takes the stance that if one is going to like new things, then sometimes old things are going to disappear because that's just how life is. But sometimes there's a little more at play that natural evolution, and when it comes to city planning, there almost always is a lot more at play, and it's far from natural. I was part of the movement that successfully saved Gabys Diner from being swept aside to make way for a chain restaurant, but that kind of protest rarely succeeds. My treasured New Piccadilly Cafe is no more, victim of redevelopment, and now, a similar fate has befallen the wonderful Madame Jojos.

Much has been written about how a violent incident involving doorstaff was what closed it down, which is technically true, but you don't have to listen to hard to pick up the whispers of possible dodginess. Well, I've never been much for whispering, so I'll say it out loud. It stinks. Some of the key door staff in the incident didn't even work for Jojo's, they came from neighboring businesses. Jojo's were told to change the management and take on a whole new, council approved, door team - which they did. And yet, even after complying with all demands, their license was still revoked, swiftly and without debate. Put this together with the fact that public records clearly show a plan to demolish Jojo's and replace it with new, lucrative retail units that was drawn up long before the incident ever happened, and it doesn't take Woodward and Bernstein to figure out that this whole affair looks exactly as crooked and cynical as you'd expect. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's just my cynical paranoid mind at work. Or maybe a Tory council and real estate developers just ain't the most ethical of motherfuckers.

A spokesbot from Westminister council is quoted thus: “Westminster is rightly proud that Soho is now a safer area for people to live, work and play. It is not something we will apologise for.”. Well, I don't doubt their reticence to apologise for anything, at all, ever, but I think this says, perhaps, more than was intended. Here's the thing, cities should have areas that are a little..rough. It's part of the fabric of a city. There should be places that aren't ideal for kids. There should be a couple of streets that are mainly for grown ups - that offer grownup pleasures, grownup thrills, and sometimes grownup dangers. It's cultural texture. If you make a whole city family friendly, then you become like a parent who smears anti-bacterial gel all over their kid, every time they touch anything that fell on the floor. You think you're doing the right thing, but as soon as that kid catches a cold, they're going to drop dead. Allow the exaggeration, to make my point, won't you?

On top of that, I adore the fantasy that chain stores and high end dining = safer. Like nobody's ever been mugged outside a Wahaca, that shit only happens near McDonalds. Such low-grade misdirection that the council hopes will take our attention away from the gorgeous new linings of their pockets.

Oh well. It's tragic, and boring, and shite, but the shows will go on, have no fear about that. Just like always, the travelling circus will just find a new place in which to pitch its tent. Crowds will follow, and the shows will thrive. We're flexible, like Bruce Lee's water, and that makes us strong.

For me, I played Jojo's pretty regularly, usually as part of the excellent Magic Night, but also, over the years, with the lovely Folly Mixtures, or in Bete Noire, or with the mighty Chutzpah and Hagen, and I never had a bad gig there. I'd bounce on stage, get my first laugh by noticing the low ceiling, and we'd be off and running. It was such a strange shape room, you could play the people in the pit right by the stage off against the folks way back by the bar, to the amusement of the people sitting down in between. The crowds were always lovely, but just on the cusp of considering the possibility of being lary, which meant you couldn't sleepwalk through your set, you had to deliver. I do love that in a venue. I knew I'd done good if I could stare through my own reflection in Andy's sound booth to see him cackling away. That was a nice feeling.

We had a..well..there were differing labels attached to it..was it a protest? A procession? A vigil? A funeral? Whatever it was, it was good, and a couple of hundred retro and reprobates, dressed in their finest, paraded a coffin through soho. I figured many passers by might have thought it was a genuine funeral of a soho character, at least until the coffin was upended and dumped in Jojo's doorway, where, hilariously, the lone security guard inside started freaking out that he might be trapped inside. Lols were had.

Then there was drinking and chips and chatting in a pub nearby and the sense of family that often exists in this little community was felt. And I didn't get a chance to tell Abigail O'Neil what a great job she'd done organising it all, so I'm doing it now.

And then, as if to re-enforce the fact that the show must, indeed, go on, I jumped on the tube and got myself over to Acton to perform at The Aeronaut. Packed house, cool acts, lovely (and quite new) venue, and snakes! One venue dies, another thrives. So there is, at least, that.

Back in the day, conventional wisdom said that you'd toil for years, decades even, on the road. Leaving flopsweat footprints on creaky stages across the country, setting up that nightly payment of your dues, making friends and enemies, finding and losing lovers and agents, as you criss-crossed the map doing your thing. Squinting through cheap spotlights at a fresh set of faces in the darkness every night, and, if you were good, if you were lucky, sending them back home as fans. Slowly, you changed minds, made strangers into believers, one half empty auditorium at a time, until you got the call. Then, with your pedigree proven and your suit pressed, you got a shot on telly.

Your colleagues would suck at their teeth at the news, knowing, as did you, that you were faced with a choice. Did you do your best stuff, the song that had almost become your catchphrase, the trick that people clapped you on the back and shook their head with disbelief at, and, by putting it in front of so many gogglebox-fixated eyeballs, render it useless for future live work? Or would you only give 'em your B-material – don't run the risk – save the good stuff for the crowds that had made you, and that would see you into another few years? Would you dance with the one that brought you, or do the old switcheroo?

But here's the thing: I'm pretty sure that conventional wisdom is wrong on this one.

Television is often cited as one of the main contributing factors to the death of music hall and variety, and I think it's pretty obvious what a crock this is. For a start, it's fairly well documented that greedy venue managers started to realise that they could book a couple of these new-fangled rock & roll bands into their hall, paying just for two acts, rather than a whole mixed bill of performers, and by doing so, attract a younger audience. Bands would work for less, because the more fans they could create, the more records they'd sell the next week. That was the killer heart punch to variety – the re-purposing of the stage as a place to promote another product, to a whole new market, the teenager.

But surely TV didn't do any good? Well, all I can really do is relate my own experience. I've done one of my signature tricks on some pretty high profile shows, and my live work is going better than ever - although there has been a discernible change in my audience reaction, and I think its very telling. A few years ago, before my reverse-tablecloth trick had infected your screens quite as extensively as it has done since, I'd pull the cloth, get the applause, and as I'd prepare to put the cloth back on, they'd be a nice feeling of happily confused expectation in the audience. They knew something was coming, but they had no ideas what. When it happened, it was a surprise. These days, in pretty much every crowd I work to – at least in this country – as I get ready to put the cloth back on, there is – and I promise you this is true – a completely tangible feeling from a section of the audience of “Oh shit, it's that guy” - they realise, in a split second, that I'm the guy a few of them have seen on TV do that trick, and then they realise that they're about to see it live, and they get excited.

And that's the key. I think, these days more than ever, when people see a million incredible things on youtube before lunch, that to see one of those things live – before your very eyes – has gained in value. I imagine those people telling their friends - “You know that guy we saw do that tablecloth thing on youtube? He was at the show last night! He did it right in front of me!”. I think that the more opportunities to see things on screens there are, the more prestige there is in seeing something right in front of your nose.

Screens didn't kill variety, but they are helping revive it.

Which is why I've been enjoying making some little bits of video to put up online. It's a fun, creative process, and people who enjoy the videos might well seek me out in a live show. And besides, we're supposed to be makers right? It's possible to make little movies with cheap equipment you can put in your pocket. Why would I not want to do that?

In only slightly unrelated news, I was told recently that a fairly well-known burlesque and cabaret producer thought the only thing I did was pull tablecloths. I'm currently touring my third hour-long one man show, which is full of bottles, hats, canes, electric carving knives, yoyos, bowling balls, and no I don't, so far, have a routine with a kitchen sink but it can only be a matter of time. I work pretty hard at creating new pieces and pushing the boundaries of my art form as much as I can, so I'd be a liar if I said it wasn't frustrating when someone who, frankly, should know better, writes me off as a one-tricky pony. Not that I'm not proud of that bit of business, you understand. So I guess that's another reason that I'm enjoying infecting the internet with little video calling cards – hopefully it'll remind people the breadth of what I do. Anyhoo: whinge over.

It's been a great month – did my last few 2014 tour dates in a beautiful spiegeltent at the Canterbury festival, and in some gorgeous venues around the Lake District. My mind is still happily boggled when I walk out on stage and find a room full of people who have chosen to spend their hard earned money on a ticket to my show. I couldn't be happier when that happens, and hopefully it'll happen a lot more next year: “Showman” comes to the Purcell Room in London's South Bank Centre in late January, (Which is INSANE) and plans are in place for some more tour dates in spring 2015. Can't bloody wait.

Between now and then, I'll be popping up at lots of burlesque and cabaret shows, supporting the brilliant Puppini Sisters at the Garrick Theatre in the West End, oh, and if you're in Germany, you'll be able to see me do my hat & cane routine as part of the Rire Sur La Ville comedy gala which will be broadcast on RTL sometime over Christmas. It was full of very famous Europeans, who I didn't know, so it felt weird, but the lighting was gorgeous, so I'm looking forward to seeing how it looks!

The aforementioned AFVS standing, of course, for "Another Fucking Variety Show", the pirate ship of cabaret, captained by Lili La Scala, in which I have had a regular spot for the last couple of years in Edinburgh, and which has come to the London Wonderground for a couple of shows. Gang back together, and all that. It's always an amazing show, and one of my favourite backstages to be hanging out in. Especially meaningful to be performing in such a gorgeous venue, when, just a handful of years ago, I was doing street shows, right there on the South Bank, a few feet away.

Great though my iphone is, I felt like taking out the big boy camera for this one. Hope you like what it saw.

Anyway, I brought "Showman" back to the Edinburgh fringe this month for a limited season of sixteen performances - which of course meant that within those two and a bit weeks, I ended up doing a total of fifty five shows, spots and other associated stage-based arsing arounds. Good times. Tiring, but good.

During a chat with the always delightful Hardeep Singh Kohli I heard myself saying that this year I finally felt that I wasn't knocking on the door trying to get into somewhere, but was on the inside, accepted. I'm aware of the slight level of self-involved bollocks that implies, but its the honest truth. This year, although the weather was bad, even for Scotland, and audiences were maybe a little down across the board, it felt a bit easier. The rave, five starreviews, helped. haha.

I certainly had a lot of fun doing my show, and hanging out with gangs of friends from the worlds of street performing, cabaret and comedy. Ahh, the precious nourishment to be gained from created families.

Best moments of the fringe for me: Hurting my knee, getting some painkillers, and then, while under the influence of said painkillers, buying a house. That's a special kind of thrill. Also: Watching Lili La Scala fall off her piano, headfirst into the lap of her pianist, and then just stay there. Cabaret pizza club, of course, and its young spinoff group, the Meltdown society (Deep fried mars bars for the win).

Here's a few things my iphone saw while I was there.

If you do like my photos, then I'm all over instagram, so maybe consider following me there?

Aaaand the "Showman" tour rolls on - I'm out of the country for a few days, and then I'm bringing the show to the Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal on Saturday 30th August. Spread the word and COME!

After a few technical difficulties, I'm very pleased to say that four episodes of Mat Ricardo's London Varieties are now back online, for anyone to watch, for free. The shows feature some of the most interesting and entertaining people from the world of comedy and variety in conversation and in performance, including - Al Murray, Paul Daniels, Eddie Izzard, The Boy With Tape On His Face, Piff the Magic Dragon, Eastend Cabaret and many more. I'm very proud of them, and I hope you enjoy watching them as much as I enjoyed making them!

Ok, ok, there is no dark truth. It was a total delight from beginning to end, and I sumbit the following curtain-call selfie as evidence that a good time was had by all.

Here's the thing about Conley: He is, as we used to occasionally say at Covent Garden about people with a penchant for schtick, "one of us". He thinks of himself as a singer first. "I was born to sing", he says, "and everything else, I learned". But the thing is, that "everything else" covers quite a lot of ground. He is, to start with, a much better singer than you think he is, unless you've seen him in one of the many big musicals he's been in. Boys got pipes. He's also, of course, very funny - a stand-up with funny bones, but also plunges into audience participation, slapstick, fire-eating.. He's a vaudevillian - someone who can turn his hand to pretty much anything. An entertainer. And there ain't too many like that left.

He cut his teeth on Summer seasons, holiday camps and end of the piers, where to cultivate yourself into a swiss army knife of bits of business was the way to ensure a healthy career, and the stuff he started learning back then continues to make him one of the country's most invaluable pantomime performers, as well someone who, when he decides to, can sell out a national tour, which is what he did last month.

And my god, he's a worker. The James Brown of light entertainment, right there, ladies and gentlemen. There's no wasted time at the top of the show, no time spent "getting to know the feel of the room". He bounds on stage with a hearty "I'M HERE!", and literally within five seconds he's jumped off the stage, in knee-deep in the audience, lobbing out gags in between wall-shaking verses of "Let the good times roll". This is a seasoned fighter, bouncing around the ring landing jab after jab, totally able, as they say, to go the full 12.

Near on two and a half hours, minus me doing a quick twenty in the first half, the rest is all him. And its all killer, no filler. Routines polished over a career that spans all his adult life, and a fair bit before that, too.

For the best part of a month we pinballed around the country, doing a show, then driving through the night to wherever the next show was. Lots of grins from late-night garage shop staff as they recognise the face - or just as often the voice - that just strode up to them clutching coffee and a Kit-kat (He likes Kit-kats).

So, in short, I had a ball. Gorgeous audiences who were totally up for having fun. Some of the most beautiful theatres in the country. Being driven by Brian from gig to gig, while getting a steady stream of excellent andecdotes about the great and the good. What's not to like?

I also deliberately avoided the tour curse of eating crap and putting on weight - running every day (which is a very nice way to have a look around whatever town you happen to have woken up in), and eating healthlily. I actually managed to lose nearly a stone while on tour, which is insane, but here I am giving it a proper middle-aged man brag anyway. Sorry.

The last date was at Leeds City Varieties - one of my favourite rooms in the world, and one I've played enough times that when I rolled up at the stage door, the staff greeted me by name and started teasing me immediately. Nice. Can't think of a more perfect way to end the tour.

Took a few photos while we were on the road - hope you like them..

A prop from the show. Yes, it is, in fact a puppppppettttt.

Always nice to bathe in the glory of the greats who have played a theatre before you

The boss, giving it tits and teeth

Me, giving it "Oh, if I must..."

Warming up backstage

So thanks to Brian, and Rick and Gareth - the amazing team that put the show together every night - what a blast.

Also thanks to all the audience members who were kind enough to tweet me after shows and tell me how much they enjoyed my work - means so much. I'm spending most of the next few weeks doing some shows in various places abroad, but will head back to the Edinburgh fringe in August for a return season of my critically-acclaimed one man show "Showman". A strictly limited run of 16 shows only, so click here to book your tickets now!

To the beautiful, slightly-seen-better-days, but BEAUTIFUL Morecambe Winter Gardens for the Morecambe Variety Festival. Great fun, lovely people, amazing venue and one of the longest shows I've ever been a part of!

I really need to work on what my face is doing when I'm performing my finale, huh...

The plans are to restore the Winter Gardens to its former glory, but of course that'll take time and money. They've made a good start, and its great that there's variety being staged in the place, even if its only for one weekend a year at the moment. I hope I get to come back and work it many more times in the future.

Check out some of the names on this poster - Sarah Vaughan! The great Chick Murray! Dancing! Game shows! Bands! Must have been quite the place to be, in its prime. Oh, and look, every Thursday - professional wrestling! One of the fun things I got to do between shows, was look through some of the albums of old promo 8x10s of some of the people who had performed there back in the day. Found a few gems, too...

Oh yes, that'll be the legendary Exotic Adrian Street. One of the most famous bad guys in British Wrestling in the 70's and 80's. He started wrestling in 1957. Care to guess when he wrestled his farewell match? Last bloody year. Also note how, when he signed autographs, he made the "A" of his name look like a cock and balls. Naughty Adrian. Naughty.

I'll be brutally honest, what drew me to this promo card was the achingly 1970's image and name, but then I did a little googling. You're looking at the act that won New Faces in 1977 & appeared on the Royal Variety performance. Pretty good, no? Oh, and if you want to play the "Where are they now" game, well, the guy goes by the name of Lance Ellington, has written songs for quite a few of pops biggest names, and can be seen as one of the lead vocalists in the Strictly Come Dancing band. How cool.

And then there's this fellow. Yep, dollars to donuts that's a very young Charlie Chuck, right there. Hasn't really changed a bit.

Josephine, shaking it

I'm currently on tour with Brian Conley, which is, frankly, a hoot and a half.

I'll be bringing my hit one man show, "Showman" - fresh from a sold out West End run (Still can't quite believe that when I type it) to Dorchester Arts on the 24th of May, (with special guest Sarah Bennetto), so if you live in the area, or know someone that does, then get yourself a ticket and help show that there's an audience for my flavour of variety!

So, in what is starting to feel jarringly like a regular commute, I got on another long-haul Emirates flight back to sun-kissed and spider-infested Australia. To Fremantle, just outside Perth, this time, for the Fremantle street arts festival. I was looking forward to this one. I'd played it a handful of years ago with my old double-act, and had a great time, so I was excited to be going back.

Photo by Hugh Marsh

It didn't disappoint. Flawlessly gorgeous weather the whole week, lovely big juicy audiences, and a delightful gang of fellow performers to twat around with in between shows. This, as Chris Tarrant used to say, is what they want. Gigs like this are always precious for the gift of hanging out with old friends and making new ones, and this weekend, happily, I did both.

I'm not sure if they know how poetic they are, both in their work and in their off stage lives. I first met them at a long gig in Germany and was Immediately charmed into submission by them and their beautiful act. Their chilled yet sunny outlook (as underlined by the name of their act "Cirque No Problem"), their "fallen through a wormhole from a steampunky alternative Edwardian gypsy word" costumes, their duo trapeze routine (on the street!) which tells the story of their love while hanging upside down on a rig supported by volunteers. It's an amazing routine, which includes brilliant acrobatics, stepping on genitals, and some rather excellent relationship symbolism (balance, mutual strength, carrying each other, oh yes) to create something that pretty much always, literally, brings a tear to this weary vaudevillians eye. Oh, and their daughter Hally (Named after the comet!) wins the award for most adorable small child currently in the international street performing scene. By a mile.

There's something lyrical and perfect about the prop that jessica has chosen to become a mistress of - The circus bicycle. I've never seen it used in a street theatre show before, which is crazy, bearing in mind how many bloody unicyles infect the circuit like one-wheeled herpes. A bike, though, is different. People have bikes. In the same way that I like to use props that people have experience of, in the belief that when I do something unexpected with, say, some spoons, it means more to an audience because, y'know, they have spoons, there is something ideal about a performer using a bike on the street. Bikes belong on the street. it doesn't look out of place, or special, until she slides, effortlessly, onto it's saddle, riding it backwards, or upside down, or sitting on the handlebars looking nonchalant as it describes big lazy circles around the edge of her audience. Blissful. Jessica also talks backwards. Fluently. In six languages. I love that my job lets me know people like this.

I've known Pete for nearly 30 years. When I arrived at Covent Garden in the late 80's, fresh faced and with a young brain full of the dream of somehow being able to make a living out of performing, he was already there, being hilarious and silly. And here he was, still being just as silly as he's always been, if not more so. His is a gentle, subtle form of clowning, if you can say that about someone who smashes plates, swears loudly at a dustpan and brush, and encourages his audience to chant loudly about how he doesn't make them chant loudly. Off stage, he's chock-full of understated style, but on stage, with his over-sized, shapeless grey suit, red beret and absurd, massive white boots, he looks like a man drawn by an over-excited child on a tight deadline. His is one of the acts that the other performers watch. Always a good sign. People often talk about a good clown as being a master of controlled chaos. Pete shows you that the control part is wildly overrated.

Here are a few more things my camera saw while I was there.

Finally, here's Pete's drawing of the band he saw one night at a cafe in town. I take photos, he draws pictures.

A lovely time was had by all, then. Hoorah for that. And while we're on the subject of lovely times, I'm ridiculously busy this month. Very excited to say that I'm the sole support act for Brian Conley's brand new UK tour, which starts next week! Full details here. I'm also doing a few dates of "Showman" in the UK this year, the first one is coming up on the 24th of May in Dorchester, with special guest Sarah Bennetto - click here for info and booking. There are more dates to follow, so I might well be coming to your part of the country, or indeed world, soon. Ooh, cryptic. Get me.

Just got back from a few days in Dubai. I doubled up on gigs - performing at a street theatre and comedy festival during the afternoons, and then zipping off to a sparkly cabaret venue at night. Dubai is a complicated, and, if I'm honest with myself, problematic place, which brings up too many conversations to be neatly discussed in a stupid little blog like this one. The audiences, though, were uniformly lovely, and that's as good a litmus test as any I've found.

Over the next week or so I've put aside some time to work on some new material for a little later in the year, which is always an enjoyable process, and involves buying/making some new props, which still doesn't seem like real work.

The best camera is the one you have with you, they, say, and I had my phone with me in Dubai, so..

The brilliant Akira Endo killing it

LIQUID NITROGEN FROZEN YOGHURT!

LIQUID NITROGEN FROZEN YOGHURT! WITH GUMMI BEARS! (I am 44 years old)

Dubai's version of Elephant & Castle, clearly

This predictably opulent shopping mall provided the venue for a couple of the shows

So - after five weeks, 72 shows, hundreds of audience members and countless iced coffees - we're done.

The Adelaide Fringe this year was a long adventure of hard work, gorgeous crowds and friends old & new. Had a great time, but ready to go home now. My beautiful grey city beckons.

Achievements unlocked: Was happy with my work, didn't go mental, and spent time with some lovely folks. Level up.

Here's to all my beautiful carny friends - you know who you are, and you know how sane you keep me. Special thanks, of course, to Tapeface and The Dutchess, and the Gag Reflex family. Fucking splendid people.

One last story to close this up with.

During the first week of shows, I happened to hand a flyer to a couple of people who mentioned that they were from Yorkshire. I told them that my parents live in Yorkshire, and we chatted for a while and then they moved on. Well, on the very last night, they came to the show. A middle-aged couple, and an older woman - I'm guessing one of their mothers. Sat in the front row and loved it.

After the show they made a point of finding me to tell me how much they enjoyed the show, and the older woman asked if I was a tap dancer. I said yes, a little. She used to be a tap dancer, she said. She told me she could tell I danced, by the way I moved in the hat and cane routine. You'll understand how happy that makes me. Then she asked if I knew the Bradford Alhambra. I do. It's one of the great Northern vaudeville theatres. "I used to be a sunbeam", she said, "An Alhambra Sunbeam".

So - on the last night of my show, I had, sitting in my front row a genuine, bona-fide music hall dancing girl. Not sure I could have asked for a more perfect and fitting end to a run. Thanks, sunbeam.

And just so you know - here's what the Sunbeams used to look like:

And here are some more images I shot with my phone of some of the people that helped make my time here so enjoyable...

Also got to play some nice stages...

And here are few more things that caught my eye..

Adrienne Truscott was here...

Thanks for the bench, Ted & Joyce.

DO NOT steal Kiran's chalk.

Cabaret pancake club!

Pretty cool roof for a shopping mall

And finally...WE SAW A POSSUM IN A TREE! WE SAW A POSSUM IN A TREE! WE SAW A POSSUM IN A TREE! IT WAS CUUUTE!

On my way back to London now, next stops are the beautiful Leeds City Varieties on 21st and 22nd, and then the DubFest in Dubai on the 28th to the 30th. Wheeeeeee...

So, yes, after a fairly smooth, albeit absurdly long, flight - marred only by the big fat man in the seat next to me taking off his shoes, exposing his stinky feet and then stealing my vegetarian meal when I wasn't looking - I am in Adelaide. I am here to perform my one man show "Showman", pretty much every night for nearly five weeks. Most days I'll also be doing extra cabaret spots in comedy and variety shows, and for a week I'll also be part of the street performers festival programme, so it's going to be hard work, especially if I'm dumb enough to be wearing a three piece suit in one of the hottest cities in the world, which, of course, I am.

On the day I arrived, this place was, indeed, the hottest city on earth, then the following two days it rained torrentially and constantly, which flooded everything, but now the weather is back to what the locals un-ironically refer to as "normal". Which means that walking outside often feels like being a dog locked in a hot car. The air so hot and dry you can somehow feel it warm your lungs when you breathe. I am not complaining though. No whinging pom, I. Blue sky and a big gold sun is always welcome.

My show is in a lovely little tent called the Campanile, which is situated slap-bang in the middle of the very aptly named "Garden of Unearthly Delights". This place is great. A big, beautiful garden full of circus big tops, speigeltents, little sideshow tents, food trucks and fairground rides - every tree strung with fairly lights, a candy floss machine around every corner. It's the centre of the fringe, and I couldn't be happier to be there.

Happy happy happy happy

Apparently, my target demographic is women who want a wee

When I balance something on my nose during my show, this is what I see

What makes it even more delightful is that dozens of my friends are here too. After I finish my show every night, I can walk outside and see a bunch of old pals from my street performing days spruiking their arses off - clowns, escapologists and strong ladies who always bring a smile to my face, and whom I love very much. And then, a little further afield, in some of the tents, there are fellow conscripts from the British cabaret army - filthy singers who love pancakes, improvising rappers, intoxicating sirens and mighty tapefaces. And when you're away from home for five weeks, being able to talk rubbish with a familiar face is a valuable commodity indeed.

The ticket lady in the fake fur coat. She'll put a smile on your dial.

Not that I haven't been making friends with new people, specifically, the new people that have been buying tickets to come and see me every night. I wasn't prepared for the loveliness of the audiences. Here's the thing, as those of you who have seen me work in England will know, there's a strong self-effacing tinge to most of my stuff - I get an indecent amount of comedy mileage out of kinda, sorta apologising for what I do. That's something that grew out of years of British audiences screwing their faces up in annoyed confusion when you tell them you're a juggler. I think I've done pretty well getting past that, but still, it's a genuine and palpable first reaction to what I do, when I do it in my home country. But here, not so much. It blindsided me a little. At home, I'll open with a faux-apologetic "I'm a juggler, I know, I don't like it any more than you do.." kind of gag, but here in Adelaide by the time I've told them I'm a juggler, they're already grinning, whooping and ready for the first trick. It's.. really nice.

I walk past this every day. Makes me happy every time.

The shows have been going really well, I'm very happy with my work here, and I've been getting some very nice reviews. My favourite quote about the show so far, though, would have to be a tweet from a certain Lizardman, who, after watching my show, let this one fly:

So it's been a generally pleasant time here, marred only slightly but the little internet shitstorm stirred up by comedian Nadia Kamil's arrogantly dunderheaded bit of stand up about burlesque. It's making the rounds on youtube, and I'm not going to link to it here - you can find it if you want to. I'll just say this - to attack and dismiss an entire diverse artform - in which venues run mainly by women, book mainly female performers to work to mainly female audiences, wearing costumes and using props created by mainly female craftspeople - under the guise of feminism, is lazy stupidity. To use opinions, virtually all of which are simply and provably incorrect, while showing that you have absolutely no knowledge of the history, performers or purpose of that artform is ignorant and rude. But to then give away the punchline of a performers act, to steal her laugh for yourself, while getting a cheap giggle out of telling an audience how you and your friends talked about her behind her back? That's cheap playground nastiness, and it can fuck right off.

Nadia told me on twitter that the act wasn't about burlesque, but rather about her reaction to burlesque. That seemed to me like saying that Bernard Manning's racist jokes weren't about black and asian people, but rather about his reaction to them. So that's all right then. Meaningless cop-out which doesn't excuse her from having done something hurtful to a fellow performer.

But that predicable rubbish aside, spirits are high in the garden. I may have been eating slightly too many ice cream sandwiches and burritos, if that is possible, and my addiction to diet coke has seamlessly transferred to a reliance on iced coffee, but things are ok.

Oh, and if you happen to be around this part of Australia, or know someone who is, come and see my show! It's my third one man show, and the one that I'm most proud of. You can read more details about it here. Oh, and click on "TalkFringe Reviews" on that page, to read what other audience members have said about the show.

The London International Mime Festival is a big deal. It's been going since 1977, and still, due to the passion and craziness of its directors, remains fresh, important, and massively successful. It's the longest-running theatre festival of its type anywhere in the world, and I'm a fan.

From the moment when I decided that being a street performer wasn't just a way to make some easy cash, but something that interested me artistically, I have been going to shows at the mime festival. The point at which I realised that street performing was theatre, but just not in a theatre, I figured it was down to me to seek out the other kinds of performance that shared elements with what I was doing - and when the Mime Fest rolled around, well, there they all were. Physical theatre, clown, circus.. high level, respectable schtick. I started going to shows and begun another set of classes in my education.

Even better than that, sometimes, the mime fest would book variety and street performers from around the world to do shows in the lobby of the south bank centre, to entertain people waiting to go into the "proper" festival shows. Me and some of my busking compadres would enjoy this chance to see what our international equivalents were doing, to fire our imaginations, and to catch up with old friends. I'd sit there and watch performers of the level that I wanted to be, and try to figure out how to get there. I'd walk home across the river, dreaming of one day being one of the performers that the mime festival would invite to do a show in the lobby. It never even dawned on me to dream that I might, one day, be one of the "proper" shows. But, last week, that's what happened.

I'm not a mime artist, obviously, but the remit of the festival has always been to present performers who work more with the visual than with text, and I certainly qualify for that. My current one man show, "Showman" is my third, and has the largest amount of juggling routines of any of them - so it's certainly led by its visual component, although there's a lot of smart-mouthed talking too. The festival directors saw the show at the Edinburgh fringe, and asked me if I'd like to come and play with them. Oh yes.

(You can read an interview with me that the Mime Fest conducted, about how I got into this line of work, here. It's a pdf, so you can also download and read it at your leisure.)

It's always a pleasure to return to the Leicester Square Theatre, where, last year, I had performed "Mat Ricardo's London Varieties" for six months (Which you can still watch online, and for free, here - spread the word!), and it was even more of a delight to be told that the entire run of "Showman" had sold out, and pretty quickly. It's obviously an amazing feeling, knowing that you're about to do a week of shows to a room packed full of people who want to see you. No worry about how many will come, no stress about potential embarrassment. As a street performer, I'd struggle to get people interested in watching me at all, as a cabaret artist people come to see a mixed bill, not usually to see a specific performer, but to know that everyone who has bought a ticket specifically wants to see me? Sharp thrill, and something that I'm amazed and grateful for, whenever it happens.

It also means that the audiences will be warmer, and by god were they - every single show was made so easy and fun by the lovely, attentive and quick to laugh people that came. Walking out on stage was, as I like to say, like slipping into a warm bath with your favourite song on the radio. If you were in one of those audiences - thanks. Really, thanks.

The mime festival also set up a couple of special nights. One of the shows was signed live by the rather excellent BSL genius Jacquie Beckford. (And yes, the sign for "juggling" is exactly what you'd assume..), and on another night, following the show, we did an on stage Q&A session with Ben Walters, during which someone asked if I'd thought about writing a book, or doing a documentary about some of the stuff I talk about in the show, to which I replied, shyly, "um..yes please.."

If I havent made it vodka-clear yet, then let me do so - this was an amazing week for me. Truly something ticked off the dream list. Sold out West End run as part of my favourite festival, I mean come on. It wasn't so long ago that I was working on the street just 5 minutes walk from the Leicester Square Theatre. And this time of year, that is not a fun job. Every night last week I took the same journey that I used to take to Covent Garden, except when I left Charing Cross, I'd turn left instead of right, and go to a theatre instead or a freezing cold piazza.

After one of the shows, as I was packing up, a German woman from the audience came up to talk to me. She told me how much she had enjoyed the show. "The other jugglers I've seen are all just one thing", she said, "But you're showing that it can be so many things.. You've revived it, and you've redefined it". I didn't know what to say. "Well done!", she said, with a broad grin, and off she went. And off I went to have a little happy cry in the dressing room.

So here's how it happened. I was doing a gig in Bristol last month, which meant staying in a B&B, which in turn meant finding ways to fill my days before working in the nighttime, which in turn meant watching more daytime TV than I usually do. The amount of daytime TV I usually watch is none, because it's the worst thing in the world. I'd rather have Nigel Farage poke me in the eye with his finger on the hour, every hour, than have to sit through another variant of someone finding something valuable in their loft that had been previously put there by someone on the production team. I digress.

So I woke up, clicked on the little TV on the wall-bracket, and ate my instant porridge while watching Fraiser. Lovely. Frasier is the only acceptable thing to be broadcast on network TV in the daytime. And I found myself thinking, "Fraiser and Niles are well-dressed, and in a very specific 90's menswear style. I wonder who's clothes they're wearing..", and that thought led to some google searches, and pretty soon I was reading lots of blog and messageboard posts about the designers that made their suits (Mostly Armani), and then I stumbled across a link to a website that offers for sale props and costumes from film and TV shows. They had one of Fraiser's waistcoats for sale.

While I was there, I figured, there'd be no harm in seeing what other suits they were selling. Dumb move. Five minutes of scrolling through uninteresting stuff and there it was. The lead characters suit from one of my all-time favourite movies. Oh shit.

1994's "Corrina Corrina" is the film. A very touching and funny tale of a 1950's advertising jingle writer, played by Ray Liotta, struggling with his young daughter (Tina Majorino) after the death of her mother. After some failed attempts to find a nanny, Whoopi Goldberg arrives and helps mend the family. I know it sounds sappy, but you'll just have to trust me, it's really good. Makes me cry.

And there, on the screen, was Ray Liotta's nice grey three-button suit from the film. Not just that, the lot came with two shirts, three ties, a tie clip and a pair of socks. If the search that brought me here was my first mistake, then here was my second. I asked twitter what I should do. Never do that. Never ask twitter if you should spend a large amount of money on something fun, adventuresome, and basically unnecessary - they will always, faultlessly, and with one loud voice, encourage you to do so. I sent a few giggly texts to my wife about it, and she giggled back. I reflected on the odd set of circumstances that had brought me to this opportunity. And then I fucking bought it.

So a couple of days ago it arrived. It's a nice suit - lightweight, no label, so, I guess custom-made for Liotta. The trousers need a little modifying by my friendly tailor (Film stars are skinny!), but it'll definitely get used, and everything else fits really nicely. The shirts are beautiful, made by Anto, a second generation Beverly Hills shirtmakers, in gorgeous soft heavyweight cotton, the collars have an everso slight kick that I really like, and each one is embossed on the inside of the collar with "R.L." so we know who wore them first.The ties are all skinny late 50's styles, obviously, and all silk. They're also genuine vintage too, from the era the film was set, rather than the one in which it was made. Each one came safety-pinned to a big cardboard tag on which was written the character name ("Manny"), and the list of scene numbers in which that particular tie would be worn. Fun.

I've never done anything like that before. A huge nerd for movies and TV, I am, but I'm not - for whatever reason - the flavour of nerd that likes to buy memorabilia. Just not my thing. But this seemed like such a perfect storm of suit and film that the invisible hand of inevitability shoved me into it. The ties go into circulation immediately, I'm going to wear one of the shirts for the London International Mime Festival opening night party tonight, and once I have some time, I'll get the suit altered so it fits perfectly. I shall call it Manny!

The events in this story happened in November/December 2005. I never got around to writing about them, but I kept a diary at the time, which I used as the basis for this piece.

I was at home when the phone rang. On the slightly crackly line was a delightful young lady who introduced herself as Erika. She was calling, she explained, from Tokyo. She was working on a Japanese TV show, and, after watching my stuff on youtube, her producers wanted to know if I'd like to fly over to work on it. I'd spent time in Japan before, and adore the place, so yes, I would. I asked her to tell me more.

It was an annual show – a new years day tradition that had been running for 25 years. Three hours long, packed with some of Japan’s biggest celebrities. The format was simple – each celeb would show off a talent that the general public had no idea that they possessed. In reality, of course, these were not so much “hidden talents”, as they were things that all the participants worked desperately hard to learn in the weeks leading up to the show. And that was to be my role. The biggest star on the show wanted to recreate an old act – a tribute to one of his favourite performers, and then use one of my tricks for the finale. I told Erika that I was in, and then I asked – just out of curiosity – who the celebrity that I'd be working with was. I'm a bit of a nerd for Japanese culture, so I might know them. Sure, she said, it's a gentleman called Masaaki Sakai. I giggled out loud. I did know who that was, and if you're from the same part of the world as me, and roughly my age, so do you.

It's this guy

So, two days later I found myself sitting on a very comfortable plane on my way to Tokyo. The last time I flew to Japan, I'd paid for it myself, so the in-flight entertainment consisted of – and I swear this is true - one episode of “The Streets Of San Francisco” showing on a loop every two hours. This time it was a little nicer. I arrived in Tokyo, was met by Erika, who would be my handler and translator for the duration of my stay, and we drove to my hotel. Rehearsals would start tomorrow, but for now I was left in my room to de-pressurise. Thanks to the jetlag and the whirlwindedness of this gig, I was a little discombobulated. I laid on my bed, reflecting on what scary fun adventure seemed to be in my immediate future, then I pulled myself together, ordered a shedload of room service food, ate, and went to sleep.

The next morning, after a typically Japanese nearly-western style hotel breakfast buffet of scrambled eggs on pancakes with sauté potatoes, hash browns, pasta and a fruit salad with little cubes of peppermint jelly, it was time for my first day at work.

I was taken to have a coffee with one of the producers of the show, who explained the format to me, and told me that almost everyone in Japan watches it on New Years Day. No pressure, then. I got to know Erika a little better too, she was born in Japan but raised in the USA, which, obviously, improves her cool rating in either country. Then off we went across the road to the mental-looking Fuji-TV building, and to the rehearsal room that would be my workplace for the foreseeable future.

The first couple of hours was filled with person after person arriving, being introduced to me, and then finding a place to sit. Runners, prop boys, massage therapists, producers, directors, stage managers, studio bosses – all of whom got greeted with a cheerful group “Ohayo Gozaimas” and the correct depth and duration of bow. And then Mr. Sakai arrived.

He was wearing a Nike track suit, a kangol cap back to front, wraparound sunglasses, a scarf and a trenchcoat. Not young, but he moved well, and once he took off the shades you could see a face full of life. Eyes positively brimming with glints.

He sat down right in front of me, and immediately started asking me lots of questions about my life and my work. Most of this stuff went through Erika's translation, but I slowly realised that he could speak way more English that he was letting on. Sneaky. I dropped in the occasional little bit of Japanese where I could and before long we were getting on like a house on fire. Things only got better when he started discussing the act that he wanted to recreate. He fired up a video to show me it, and a very familiar little old clown spluttered onto the screen. “GeorgeCarl!”, I almost yelled. Mr. Sakai was stunned that I knew him, and said something in Japanese to Erika. “He is Mr.Sakai's hero”, Erika told me. “Mine too!”, I said, and we grinned at each other. We were similar.

We spent the rest of the night getting to know each other, Mr.Sakai hypnotizing me with stories – oh I do have a weakness for an old pro with stories. In the west, of course, he's known just for being Monkey, but in Japan he was a star before that and continues to be a star after. In the 60's he was in The Spiders – Japan's answer to The Beatles, he then went on to have a solo career as a pop star, hosted dozens of TV shows, he even played the title role in the Japanese version of Columbo!

Halfway through the evening, one of his best friends arrived. Mr.Tomei was, I think, a producer on the show – although I was never completely clear on his official role. His unofficial one seemed to be as foil to Mr.Sakai, and he played that perfectly. A similar age to Mr.Sakai, but tall and skinny, in a nice dark blue suit, with a shock of jet black hair in a 50's style, and constantly smoking. Indeed, pretty much all the men were terrifyingly enthusiastic smokers – almost all of them using little black plastic cigarette holders. Mr.Tomei and Mr.Sakai reminisced for me – they'd known each other for a very long time, and they told me stories from their youth, when they were breaking into entertainment by working in some of Tokyo's little music and comedy clubs. They told me about a cheap Tokyo diner called Jonathon's. They always used to go there after shows, as it was open 24 hours a day and you could get endless soda refills for 150 Yen. Mr.Sakai told me how, if you went there at two in the morning, the only people there would be theatricals or tramps, and that sometimes it was hard to tell which was which, and he and Mr.Tomei broke down into giggles, which then broke down into fits of coughing, more giggles and playful punching at each other. They told me that they work together on this show every year, and every year they sit here and have the same conversations they always do, so these days neither of them bothered to listen to what the other was saying, they just recite their half of the conversation like a script, and there they went again, coughing and laughing at each other. I immediately, of course, fell in love with these two wheezing, guffawing geezers, and as we finished our first day of rehearsals, I knew that this would be exactly as much fun as I hoped it would be.

Over the next few weeks, my nights were spent in that rehearsal room slowly helping Mr.Sakai learn my trick, and George Carl's act, but my days were my own, and so into Tokyo I plunged.

I went predictably nutso in Akihabara, the “Electric town” part of Tokyo where all manner of gadgetry can be found. I rode the big wheel in Palette town, a big, odd, shopping centre where I bought nintendo controller business card cases, novelty strawberry flavoured blood bags, and chocolates with photos of cats in uniforms on the box. Japan really is the country of choice if this is your kind of thing, and it is mine.

On a Sunday I went to Harajuku, where, on the bridge next to the station, the freaks and geeks come to peacock it up. It's magnificent. I saw women in full bridal gowns sitting on the floor taking pictures of each other, hard-core goth gangs, super-heroes, retro-punks, gothic-lolitas, people gleefully mixing gender and cultural references to create whatever they felt like they wanted to be, and one solitary Alice in wonderland, wandering around as if she had truly just fallen through a looking glass. I understood how she felt. I even went for lunch at the famed Jonathon's diner and sat, looking around, trying to imagine all the Mr.Sakai's and Mr.Tomei's that had been here over the years.

One night me and Erika went to see some puroresu. That's Japanese for pro-wrestling. Say it quick and it makes sense. As regular readers will know I'm a big fan of wrestling, and the Japanese do it very well indeed. I'd been to the legendary Korakuen Hall before, so I was excited to be going again. Erika didn't, at first, quite know what to make of it, but by the interval had bought a t-shirt, was carefully translating what the wrestlers were saying (“That man really, really doesn't like that man”), and was “oooh”ing to herself whenever someone caught a beating. Afterwards we went to get some food, and I had what I was reliably informed was the speciality of the house. Half a loaf of bread, stood on it's end, with a dollop of cream and caramel sauce dumped on top. I realise that this does not sound like food in any conventional sense, but it was, truly, delicious. Although the next day, Erika confessed that she had dreamt of it. Food that enters your dreams can't be good.

The rehearsals were going well. Mr.Sakai was struggling with some of the hat manipulation, but was slowly getting there. He is, he told me, a quick learner but takes lots of breaks, so is not so quick sometimes. We usually worked from about 5.30pm to past midnight, and at about 10pm every night, food would arrive on a wagon train of trolleys. They heard that I was vegetarian and had furnished me with pumpkin croquettes, sticky rice, tempura, miso soup and all manner of deliciousness. A couple of days into the job, in passing, someone had asked me what a vegetarian like me ate and drank in Japan, so I mentioned how much I adore Japanese style sweetcorn soup, and how much Coke I drink. From the next day forward, there was permanently a huge cooler of Coke and a table full of instant sweetcorn soup packets at rehearsals. Every so often the costume lady would pop up and slide a fresh cup of sweetcorn soup in front of me with a grin. I think they were trying to see how many I could eat, which was many.

I was still doing the tourist thing in my daytimes. I visited the Tokyo Tower, which struck me as a very Japanese concept. Take the Eiffel tower, make our version 35 meters taller, and paint it in bright red and white stripes, because, why not? In the basement of the tower is, of course, a massive gift shop. I bought some Hello Kitty items from a very informative emporium (Did you know, for instance, that Hello Kitty was born and lives in London, England, or that her height is five apples and her weight is three apples?). I'm more of a Doraemon man myself. What's not to love about a blue robot cat who had his ears bitten off by mice, sent back in time from the far future? Anyway, I also bought a t-shirt that reads “Tokyo Tower. Builded in 1958”, which is a beautiful thing.

I spent some time hanging out at Yoyogi Park, which is where I stumbled across, watched, and immediately became a fan of the band “Chocolate Chip Cookies”, who were rocking it hard with battery amps on a street pitch in the park. I bought a CD, songs of which are still on my ipod, and after a little googling, I'm happy to report that they're still going.

At one point, during rehearsals, Mr.Sakai shows me a prop that George Carl used in his act, that Fuji-TV had made a reproduction of. George would stand on stage ready with his harmonica waiting for the band to start. He'd signal them to start, and they wouldn't. Again he'd signal, but they'd ignore him again. Finally, in an effort to communicate with the band, he'd hold his harmonica like a walkie-talkie, pull out an extendable aerial, and blow one note on it like morse code. Trust me – comedy platinum. So Mr.Sakai had a harmonica modified to do the same gag, and when I arrived at rehearsals one night, he took great pleasure in performing the gag for me. I hooted with laughter, and my big western yuk-yuks made everyone else laugh as well. Later that night he showed the gag to someone else, and then spent the next half hour jokingly berating them for not reacting as well as I had. It became this big, beautiful running gag – whenever someone new would come into the room, he would give us a sly look and slowly reach for the special harmonica while myself, Erika and Mr.Tomei would stifle giggles. Then he'd do the gag for them, and then tell them how bad their reaction was compared to mine.

Pretty soon I was approaching the end of my time there. In Japan it's traditional to present gifts at the conclusion of business, and I like to think I did pretty well here. Mr.Sakai is a huge golf fan, so I went to a shopping centre and bought one of those covers for the top of your golf clubs. Then I went to an electronic shop in Akihabara and bought an extending aerial. A little time spent dicking around with a penknife and glue in my hotel room, and presto – a golf club cover with a pull out aerial so Mr.Sakai can do his favourite gag on the golf course.

We did one final long rehearsal, and I got to watch Mr.Sakai do his tribute act one last time. It's was terrific. He nailed all the tricks most of the time and added things, improvising good stuff. By about 11pm, Mr.Sakai announced, through Erika, that the rest of the night would be a little party to say thank you and goodbye to me. Champagne came out, and a really good red wine that Mr.Sakai particularly likes, and sweetcorn soup, of course, and we exchanged gifts. My pull-out aerial golf cover got big laughs from all the right people, and the room of 20 or so people, who I met for the first time less than a month ago, were all joking with me, teasing me, clapping me and shaking my hand. Mr.Tomei, ever the gentleman, sidled up to me toward the end of the night and apologised that he had been a little quiet this evening, but that it was because he was sad that I was going. It was one of the most touching things, I think, I have ever heard.

By about 2am it was just me and Erika in the hotel lobby. We sat outside eating ice creams and looking at the hotel's Christmas lights and resolved to stay in touch, which we have. We got one of the hotel staff to take a picture of us, and then I went back to my room to fail to pack a months worth of impulse purchases into one small suitcase for my early morning flight.

A couple of months later, Erika sent me a DVD of the show. It was such an odd, fizzy feeling to watch Mr.Sakai close the show with the act that we spent those long nights rehearsing. He did it perfectly, of course, and the crowd went nuts. I watched the credits roll, and in amongst all the crazy neon-coloured Japanese text scrolling over a studio full of celebrities waving and grinning there was my name, in English. Hilarious. Proof that it wasn't all some insane dream.

My job is weird. Full of ups and downs. Hard and sometimes heartbreaking work, but at the same time wonderful, joyous work. I've had some great gigs since my time in Tokyo, and I'm sure I'll have some more before I end up in the twilight home for the terminally vaudevillian, but I'm not sure anything would be able to top my time with Mr.Sakai.

Sometimes I get down, and when I do I sit at my desk, pick up the glass of Coke that will invariably be to my left and look underneath it, at the “Monkey” coaster that my wife bought me for Christmas the year I did the gig. “For a few weeks, once, in Tokyo”, I'll think to myself, “He was my friend”.

On those fairly rare occasions when, for whatever reason, the universe lets a bunch of us variety monkeys use a West End theatre, it always feels a bit naughty. A bit like using the school projector to show cartoons in the lunchbreak when the teachers backs are turned. And just like cartoons on a school projector, it turns out that letting us into a big theatre is often the best possible use of the equipment..

So it was that I rolled up, hat & cane in hand, to the stage door to be a part of The Boy With Tape On His Face's big, one night only, Christmas variety show "Cornucopia". And bloody blimey was it fun.

Magic and comedy and dance and music and mime and juggling and all manner of slightly more indescribable stuff. "All the best acts", as the opening voiceover said, "who happen to be available on the 16th of december".. and all presented as live TV, channel surfed by The Boy himself, sitting on stage prodding at an oversized remote control.

It so worked. And not only that, the theatre was packed. On a Monday night. With people passionate about the idea of a variety show. These days, it seems to me totally obvious that variety is on its way back in a major way. The decline in ratings of those talent shows, coupled with the success of projects like my London Varieties, Cornucopia, Another Fucking Variety Show, and the myriad smaller variety nights that are starting to crop up all over the country, does the heart proud.

Also I got to sit in a box next to Debbie McGee and watch her wide, proud smile as the audience went nuts for her husband walking on stage. That was pretty special too.

Oh, and I threw my camera in my backpack, so...

Lili La Scala and Debbie McGee take a selfie in the Royal Box. Because why wouldn't you?

Oh, and one more time, for all the dunderheaded TV execs and producers who'll tell you there really isn't much of an audience for variety - There they are!

So I get an email. Out of the blue. From someone who tells me three intriguing things. They tell me that they work for the American illusionist David Blaine, that he very much likes my work, and that he would like to speak to me about something. How odd, I think to myself. And fun. I reply that I'm certainly open to chatting to Mr. Blaine, and then, over the following couple of weeks, we exchange a few emails in efforts to arrange a suitable time for him to call me. This turns out to be tricky – we're both busy, one of us (the global superstar one) considerably moreso than the other.

During this period I give some thought to what he might want, and I think I figure it out pretty quickly. Doubtful that he's interested in me as a performer, no, but there is one thing I do that regularly gets mistaken for a magic trick. I reckon he wants my tablecloth trick. And while this strikes me as the most likely thing by far, it's still slightly strange. It's not really the kind of trick for which he's known. In recent years he's spent most of his time standing on top of poles, or under ground, or in ice, or – most recently - being continuously electrocuted, so, really, he doesn't often get within spitting distance of anything remotely resembling a “ta-da”.

If I were a magician, I'd probably be quite star-struck, but honestly I'm more curious than anything else. It's not that I don't rate Blaine – I totally do. More than anyone else, he dragged his artform kicking and cussing into the modern era, and pioneered revolutionary ways of shooting magic for TV that have been shamelessly ripped-off by pretty much everyone that came after. Don't mistake my lack of excitement for aloofness – he's a hugely important figure in an art that sits right next to mine in the cutlery drawer of variety. He also comes across as – and I don't think I'm speaking out of turn here – a little eccentric. A tad off-kilter. And I like people like that very much. I know folks who know him, and they all told me the same thing – that he's very smart and passionate and cool. As they days went by, the prospect of chatting to him was becoming more and more interesting.

So, I went to and fro with “his people” for a little while, to the point that I began to suspect that I might be being toyed with slightly. I considered the possibility that I was being tested to see how quickly I returned messages and phone calls, as a way to gauging my keenness, so I never called back, always let them make the effort. I'm stubborn like that.

And eventually, at a pre-determined time, I got a phone call. “Please hold for David”. I giggled to myself, and then he was on the phone, sounding exactly the same as he does on TV. A friendly, warm, ultra-relaxed New York drawl. “Heyyyy Mat...really good to talk to ya....biiig fan..”, and he starts talking about my tablecloth trick, and quickly I realise that I was dead on about what he wanted.

He tells me about a TV special he's preparing for. His last one ever, he tells me. With bigger celebrities than he's ever had, and he starts reeling off names, George W Bush, Woody Allen, Robert DeNiro, Will Smith, Kanye West.. Sounds great, I say. Then he cuts to the chase. He loves the tablecloth trick, and he wants to do it on the show. He'd like me to fly out to New York, stay with him in his apartment, teach him how to do it, help supervise the shoot, and then fly home. Would I consider it? I tell him that I'll give it some thought and we agree to stay in touch and talk next week. And I hang up.

I've never experienced anything like this, and at first it throws me for a bit of a loop. My initial feeling is no. The trick is something I created. It's one of my signature tricks. If someone sees a famous magician doing it on TV, and then sees me doing it on stage, who are they going to assume took it from who? Not good. On the other hand, attachment is bad – there's much more to what I do than one trick, however unique. Sometimes I do feel that much of my work gets sidelined by me being “the tablecloth guy”, and that's frustrating. And, besides, collaborating with him on such a high-profile project might well open some doors that would otherwise stay hidden behind fake bookcases. Pros and cons then.

So I had a week or so of late night kitchen table conversations with my wife, where it became apparent that this situation had brought something to the surface in me. A feeling of anxious fragility, perhaps. A fear that I might lose control of something that I made, and love. Obviously whenever you make something and show it to people, you're essentially throwing it out into the world to be used, misused, ignored, remixed, or whatever – being ok with that is part of being a maker – and yes, it's a struggle, but it's supposed to be - but this was a little different. This was selling it to someone, and I honestly didn't know how I felt about it.

But after a while, we come up with a deal, the details of which are unimportant, but that would compensate me financially for lending him my trick, while crediting me publicly as the creator of it, and tying him to a one-time-only use. I email him the deal, and then we chat on the phone, and he says, basically, no. But he says this while telling me again that it's going to be his last ever TV special. He reels off the list of celebrities one more time. He tells me again how much he loves the trick. And I feel a little pressured. But I've decided that this is too important to me to be flexible on – this whole process is so weird and scary that I feel that the only way I can do this while keeping my mental shit together is to stick to my guns. So, I tell him that it's a shame we couldn't come to an arrangement, and we say goodbye and hang up.

He called one more time, and during that conversation I hoped to get a definite closure on it (mainly so I could write about it here), and he ummed and ahhhed, reeled off the celebs again, and said that there might still be a way to make it happen, and lets not write it off completely. It was all a little vague, so I thought it best to keep schtum. But the TV special aired a couple of weeks ago, so I think it's safe to talk about it now.

And that's that. And I still don't really know how I feel about it. On one hand, I'm glad that the trick is still all mine. The months and years I spent designing and perfecting it means that I do feel protective over it, and it's nice to still have exclusivity. If Blaine had done it on TV, I honestly don't think it would have impacted much on my day to day life, but my relationship with a piece of circus arts that has been a part of my bread and butter for a very long time would have changed, somehow.

But still.. he's a fascinating guy, and it would have been a blast to hang out with him in New York, and I'm sure working with him would have stretched my mind in a few very interesting directions. Oh, and there would also have been a metric assload of money, into the bargain, so there's that.

I think, though, it brings up some interesting questions about the nature of ownership of a trick. It's much more common for magicians to buy and sell tricks, rather than circus folk and street performers who tend to, for want of a better word, steal. As a magician friend told me, there are magicians who perform only to give a shop window to the tricks they have designed – selling those effects is where they make the real money. Then there are the less ethical – those who watch someone else perform an illusion, and reverse engineer it, so they can sell it themselves. There is theft in magic,of course, but there's also a well-established marketplace, than just doesn't really exist in my world.

In my show “Vaudeville Schmuck”, I talked about the joy of finding an old trick that hasn't seen a stage in a while and using it as inspiration for something new. “Take something old”, I'd say, “give it a spit and polish, put a twist on it, make it into something new, and then pass it to the next performer down the line”. That's how to advance an artform, and that's how I came up with the reverse tablecloth.

That's why I've always said, if you see someone do something, and take it for yourself, you're a hack. If you use it as inspiration for something new or different, you're an artist.

And Blaine, clearly and obviously, is no hack. He had enough respect to get in touch and ask, which is very much to his credit, and makes me think that my friends were right about him, and that he is a smart, cool guy. Staying and working with him in New York would, I think, have been ridiculous, inspiring fun. I'm happy with the way things ended up, but still allow myself a little regret for the adventure that didn't pan out.

When you're a freelancer, like me, it's important to find the time, and money, if at all possible, to go on holiday.

So here are some photos from my recent trip to Italy. In unrelated news, I am now basically made out of cheese, booze and coffee.

And yes, as the last picture shows, I bought some things. Nice things. Yum.

Talking of things, here's another - I'm knock-down, drag-out, thrilled to announce that my hit (can we say hit? I mean people really seemed to like it in Edinburgh, and lots of them came, and critics said very nice things, so, ok, lets say hit) new one man show "Showman" will have a London run in the West End as part of the London International Mime Festival. I can't wait.

You can get info about it, book tickets, and see all the other amazing companies who are part of the LIMF2014, right here. Spread the word!

Oh, and one more thing. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "Mat Ricardo is the kind of slightly off-kilter, OCD-ish person who documents his addictions like a weirdo - I wonder if he took photographs of every single espresso he drunk while in Italy.."

Well, you're in luck, my friend. You're in luck..

Full disclosure: Number 3 is a hot chocolate. And number 10 was the best.

A few people have, over the years, mentioned the idea of some fun merchandise, but I wanted to wait until I could have the style and quality of the products reflect the gentlemanly manner people have come to expect from me!

Thanks for all the lovely birthday messages yesterday, everyone. I had a very nice day filled with food and avengers, and have woken up this morning with the flu. I can't, in all fairness, blame you for this. x

Can't quite believe I'm typing this, but I guess I can now.. Tomorrow I'm shooting a pilot presenting my own TV show. Absurdly exciting. Shall be live tweeting much of it as we go. Long day, but wooooo.

This is why I adore David Letterman: "...his beginnings as a weatherman in Indiana, where he was fired for antics like congratulating a tropical storm on being upgraded to a hurricane, making up fictional Indiana towns, and predicting “hailstones the size of canned hams.”

Thanks to all the lovely wrestling fans that made last night so fun and easy. You people are the best.
If you liked my stuff, go check out the tour dates on www.matricardo.com - dates in Brighton and Birmingham next month, and then a nice big show on the south bank in london - COME!
https://vimeo.com/122301975

Disappointed by two of this seasons big new U.S. Comedies. "Last man on earth" takes a great premise and immediately reduces it to douchebro and nagging wife. Urgh. As for "the unbreakable kimmy Schmidt" - an equally killer setup, and ellie kempers lexicon of grins can't save it from Tina fey's very problematic stereotyping of both race and sexuality.
Was hoping for fun, but both left a bad taste in the mouth and a feeling that an "it ain't half hot mum" reboot can't be far behind. Please try harder, tv.